


Terrible Things

by sumafamouxx



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Protective Avengers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Tony Stark, References to Depression, Self-Hatred, bucky is readers saving grace, crying in the shower scene, hugging in the shower, saving in the shower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 04:31:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17460692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumafamouxx/pseuds/sumafamouxx
Summary: demons overpower the angel, breaking her wings and calling for her own saving grace to come to her rescue.





	Terrible Things

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this when i was in a very bad/dark mental place around 10 months ago. it was a "a reflection of my moods/thoughts/everything lately." if you're in a negative mental space, this isnt too bad or descriptive, i think, but you know your own limits. also, if you need someone to talk to any time, come find me @stardustandbucky on tumblr.

It was unusual for Y/N to be so quiet around the team. Yes, when she meets someone new she does fold in on herself to see if the person is worth getting to know. But she’s never quiet around the team - her family - she’s always loud and boisterous and  _happy_.

To say that the team was concerned about Y/N’s state was an understatement: she was their light and the one that brought them the joy they needed so as not to sink into themselves and their own toxic minds. They were concerned, but they did a good job of keeping quiet about it. Y/N has never gotten like this in all the years she was on the team and through all the time they’ve known her; so it wasn’t weird that none of them had no idea what to do about this.

That is, until it wasn’t just Y/N keeping to herself when she was hanging around them, until she didn’t join them at all. It was gradual and no one noticed the lack of her presence until there was a large gaping hole in the team’s tight-knit relationships that no one could ignore any more.

It was one of the team’s movie nights where everyone would pile into the common room and start teasing each other about anything and everything. The loud laughter was near-constant from those observing, as was the smug smirking done by the teaser, which always resulted in the one being teased whining and/or protesting that everyone’s an asshole.

Tony was teasing Bucky tonight, with his usual Winter jokes and all. Y/N always found them funny. He’d just come up with a new one and he threw it out at the accepting sergeant, who took it all in good humor. As if it were a habit, both men turned to see your reaction, only to find you not there at all and only silence and bitter coldness replaced the you-shaped hole in the team’s dynamic.

It was as if a metaphorical bucket of ice-cold water was dumped on everyone. The laughter and teasing stopped, immediately being replaced by worried glances and individual thoughts racing about where you could be.

Tony was the first to act, “FRIDAY, locate Y/N please.”

“She is currently in her room, Mr. Stark.” the AI replies instantly.

Before anyone has the time to say anything, Bucky is already getting up and heading to the residential area of the tower. Steve makes to get up after him but Natasha prevents him from doing so, giving him a sad look.

Bucky finds her room empty when he reaches her door and opens it after not receiving a response to his knocks. This worries him, so he enters your room to see if anything could perhaps hinted at your whereabouts or at least if you’re okay.

That’s when he sees the door to your en suite closed and hears the shower running. He sighs in  relief.

He knocks on the door, “Y/N!” he calls out. “Are you going to join us for movie night?”

Bucky hears no response from behind the door. Until he picks up on the muffled sob that involuntarily escapes you.

The sound completely throws Bucky off. He pushes the door open quickly, urgently rushing inside to see if anything is wrong with you. But he doesn’t find any intruder he can protect you from. Instead of an assassin or agent that he can beat up, the imposer he finds is one of the invisible kind: the demons that plague every live being, except that sweet sweet Y/N’s have grown so big and take over what’s left of her bubbly happy personality. She was always curing everyone else’s woes, which is why they didn’t see that she was fighting her own battles and needed her own doctor too. She’d ignored her own illnesses and need for help by distracting herself with everyone else’s issues until everything came falling on top of her in an avalanche.

He found her lying in the empty bathtub with the shower running and the steam all over the bathroom. He could practically see the tear streaks mixing in with the hot water on her face. The agony expressed on that sweet beautiful face of hers chipped at the seams of his heart. Her eyes were clenched shut: she didn’t want to see the look on his face when he saw her in this pathetic state. She didn’t know that he was leaning down to carry her out of the abyss of self-loathe she’d buried herself in, didn’t know that her silent internal calls for help were finally being answered.

“Y/N,” he gasps out, his heart clenching in pain at seeing her like this.

It was as if that one word broke a wall so tall that a flood came crashing when it came down.

Y/N gasped, finally letting the choked sobs go as her eyes flew wide open and her hands clung to Bucky’s shirt, the water blossoming into flowers on it where she bunched her hands and twisted as she tried to ground herself through the actions.

Bucky pulled her to his chest; not caring about the water, not caring about the tears staining his shirt, at least not physically. He was more concerned with the tears now staining his heart and Y/N’s soft soft cheeks.

He just held her there, providing her with a solid person to hang onto as she found herself falling apart in his arms. Bucky didn’t try to get her to stop crying, didn’t ask her to explain, didn’t attempt to put her pieces back together because he knew that it wouldn’t be of any use. Not when the tide was already sweeping over her and there was no stopping it now.

So, there Bucky sat on the bathroom floor dripping wet and the shower now running cold, rocking a broken Y/N in his lap for minutes or hours or even days. Time turned into a faraway illusion and their surroundings dissolved into nothing. Nothing existed for Bucky in those moments except getting Y/N to breathe every time she was choking on her sobs. Tears dribbled endlessly down her face, her hands clutching at what she could from Bucky until she couldn’t even feel them anymore. In fact, Y/N couldn’t feel  _anything_  at all. She was so consumed by the pain emanating from her heart and her mind that she was literally numb to everything else.

A while later, Bucky found himself opening his own clenched eyes, feeling wet tear streaks drying on his own face. Looking down to see the broken angel sleeping in his lap, the occasional hiccup making her stir in her troubled sleep, he decided that he is going to help her slay her demons however he could. He picked the pieces of his own heart along with all pieces of her lying on that cold tile, collecting them all and taking them in his arms, putting them all down on the bed in the next room and surrounding them with blankets.

He pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat in it. Just as he settled in to watch over the angel with the broken wings in front of him, the bedroom door behind him clicked open. Alerted to the sound, he turned around to see Tony clamping a surprisingly firm hand on Bucky’s own shoulder. With his sad eyes trained on Y/N’s curled up form on the bed, Tony rasped out “Please take care of her the way I can’t” so quietly Bucky barely heard it.

Bucky nodded solemnly, figuring out that Tony knew more than he let on. He decided not to question it.

After a minute of watching over Y/N, Tony slowly backed away into the hallway, watching Bucky placed his right hand on his heart in a silent promise that he will do everything for the strong defeated woman in front of him.

The last thing Tony saw as he pulled the door shut was Bucky’s other hand tracing a small trail along the angel’s forehead to rid it of the frown twisting her beautiful beautiful face into a pained grimace.

* * *

**"now cram all of that isolation and self/torture into a small brain-sized box and that’s what’s in my head."**


End file.
